Cloud's Korean Language Log

[Cloud]

It does have a translation toggle button! It's the button with two arrows, one pointing to the right and one pointing to the left.

Thank you! I hadn't even noticed all those useful little buttons!

This is surprisingly similar to what goes through my mind regarding the languages I study. I've never been able to concurrently study French and Japanese for long periods of time. I usually end up switching between the two depending on my mood, or studying other easier languages when I'm bored or frustrated. It's to the point that it honestly sometimes feels like I'm fuelling some self-fulfilling prophecy whereby I can't ever master Japanese.

Nowadays, I'm trying to convince myself that I should just pick one and focus on it since studying other languages to low levels doesn't really do much for me anymore. Plus I just feel like I need to be less indecisive in general. >.>

I have a theory that it might be because I've come across something in Korean that I'm having difficulty understanding or I've been trying to learn too much in a short space of time, so my brain wants to focus on something different (and easy) while it works on understanding the new concepts in the background. Actually, I've just remembered where I got this idea - there's a book / MOOC called 'Learning How to Learn' which mentions that when you're trying to learn something difficult, rather than studying the material intensely (which can feel fruitless and frustrating), it's more efficient to do something completely different (iirc they suggest physical exercise as the best alternative) while your subconscious works on the problem. Perhaps this explains switching between the "difficult" East Asian language / "easy" European language thing.

Thinking about it, when I come back to Korean, I usually fly through all my Anki reviews no problem and really enjoy it, and wonder why I put it on the backburner, so it seems plausible. The idea makes me feel a little less annoyed at myself, because it means I am still learning Korean subconsciously (I'm not just being lazy!). As long as it doesn't get to the point where I'm focused on something else for so long that I forget Korean, I guess it's not a big deal - I'll just continue listening to music and watching tv and hope that (partial) immersion has an osmotic effect. Slow and steady!

[Sizen]

Personally, I think I just tire myself out and get sick of studying and not feeling like I'm making progress, but that's probably just me.

Thinking about it, when I come back to Korean, I usually fly through all my Anki reviews no problem and really enjoy it[...]

Reminds me of the bow wave theory an old forum member had. Tl;dr inefficient study causes a backlog effect in your brain that extended periods of non-exposure can resolve. It feels like black magic, but I've definitely experienced that kind of thing before. Although, I have to say, I kind of prefer the idea of studying efficiently instead and not having to take breaks, to be honest. ^^;

[Cloud]

I just happened to stumble across a torrent of hundreds of Korean ebooks, which is kind of amazing since I remember searching Korean torrent sites a while ago for something like that and coming up with nothing. This comes at just the right time, because I was trying to make my way through Harry Potter sans dictionary (looking up each word on my laptop or phone just seemed like too much hassle) in the hope of absorbing vocabulary from context, but even knowing the story well, reading just felt like a chore. I might understand one sentence completely, followed by four sentences where I only recognised a few words - not fun, and I doubt I'd learn much from that kind of ratio. Thankfully I now have the ebook version on Readlang, although Korean is still in beta so all the extra functions that I can use for Italian don't work well for Korean (but not complaining - this makes things so much easier!).

Since I like variety, I uploaded a few other books to keep me going, as well as some fanfiction, which I don't usually read, but I heard about the legendary 가시연 and decided to give it a try, with accompanying English translation, too!). I was happily surprised to find some of the Twelve Kingdoms (십이국기) books by Fuyumi Ono, too (I actually bought the English translations of the first four books and fell in love with them, then Tokyopop stopped publishing them, urgh).

One thing I've become really aware of while reading Korean is the spacing between words or lack thereof. Although 십이국기 is published in Korea, I'm pretty sure the version I have is a fan translation, and often I have to do a double-take, because I'm sure words have missing spaces between them, and when I look them up in the dictionary they do indeed have spaces. TTMIK does go over word spacing a little, and I'm sure it mentions that it's one of these things where there are rules, but a lot of the time people don't follow them. I notice this most when I read articles online, which aren't much of a problem, but then I see the comments below and there are like no spaces between words at all…! But the comments for me are much more difficult to decipher anyway, just because it's more casual writing, slang, etc.

Just noticed that I've just passed the 1k card mark on Anki for Italian - that was quick? They're so fun I have to hold back and not surpass my 50 new cards a day - I'd rather have a steady number of reviews, so any extra enthusiasm for Italian is directed at Clozemaster. I have a bit of a backlog with my Korean Anki cards, though. Hopefully I'll have enough time / energy / motivation to catch up with it at the weekend.

[Cloud]

I really want to finish the TTMIK grammar course soon - I glanced over some of the lessons I still have to study and I'm pretty sure I know most of it already, but I just like having that sense of completion. In the past couple of days I've studied lessons 9 to 15 of level 9 (only 15 more lessons!), which gave me another 85 cards to add to anki.

It's been a couple of weeks since I started studying Italian. The graph on Anki shows I've been studying for about 30 minutes every day pretty consistently, watching a lot of dubbed Scrubs and Friends episodes, and doing a bit of reading, too. I've been enjoying it, but I feel like Italian has kind of replaced Korean - I was thinking about whether it's a problem of time, but I realised that I'm still spending time on English language media out of habit. So I'm going to try and be more mindful about how I'm spending my time, because I really miss Korean.

[Cloud]

Korean: I've finally finished the TTMIK grammar lessons! I think I started them a couple of year ago, so about time So I can get started on the Integrated Korean series now. I think I also said I was going to do an IYAGI a day, but that didn't seem to happen, so I'm gonna make more of an effort to make it a regular thing. Currently I'm addicted to 반달친구, but it's agony waiting every week for the next ep! I really like binge-watching shows, so I want to find something (preferably a variety) with a large backlog I can work my way through.

Italian: I've finished the beginner anki deck I downloaded (~1.5k cards), and now I'm starting on the tatoeba sentences (~60k cards ). The beginner deck followed an i+1 formula, so it was great for getting through quickly, but the tatoeba deck is ordered from shortest sentence to longest, so I guess I'll either take more time to complete my cards every day or cut back a bit. And I've done 25% of the lessons on Duolingo!

***Other Languages***
I was reading a book about habits that said something along the lines of "what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while", and it got me thinking about the languages I've put on hold. I'll often spend time on a language, then shelve it for a while, and when I come back to it I have to review a lot to get back to where I stopped, which is frustrating. Although I'd like to be someone who just focuses completely on one language, I think I have to admit that I enjoy variety. Languages are a hobby for me, so I want to just enjoy whatever takes my fancy.

Mandarin: I was watching Go Fridge! and 透鲜滴星期天 over the weekend (I don't love cooking shows, but I do love the presenters!) and it made me miss Chinese, so I've added a Chinese deck to anki and set it to 10 new cards a day. I think I was in the midst of doing HSK 4 on memrise when I abandoned it, so I might try to (slowly) add individual character study back in.

Norwegian: I kind of abandoned my Norwegian tree on Duolingo, so most of the 70+ skills I've completed need reviewing. So I want to regild a couple of skills a day, so in about a month I'll be able to start tackling new skills and finish off the tree. Luckily I have been keeping up with the accompanying memrise course!

Esperanto: I'm not planning on doing any active study at the moment, nor do I really feel the need to regild the Duo tree until 2.0 is released, but I do have some books by my bed that I want to read, so that will keep the language fresh in my mind.

German: A while ago, I started the German tree on Duolingo and became addicted, completing half the tree over the course of a few days. Of course, then I didn't touch it for months, but I have been regilding the past couple of days which has been really fun.

Thai: I desperately want to start studying this... I've had a go at learning the alphabet a couple of times, but it seemed too difficult. I've kind of been playing with the idea of straying away from my favourite route of anki + textbooks, and focusing on listening - I have a few tv series I want to watch, and I've subscribed to some podcasts, so maybe I'll add a little Thai into daily life...?

There aren't enough hours in the day for all these languages I want to learn!

[Cloud]

Korean: I've read through Integrated Korean Beginner 1 + 2! Unsurprisingly, I already knew pretty much everything, but I wanted to read through them just to make sure (I like being thorough!). I wasn't totally sold on the way they teach, though - the course seems to rely heavily on huge vocab lists and tables of information like grammar, with relatively few Korean examples. I do like that every chapter contains a section on various aspects of Korean culture, but even here there seems to be a lot of space taken up by unnecessary information: in the chapter about dining out, the lists of different names and types of restaurants seems more suited to a travel guide, and glancing at the first chapter of Intermediate 1, there's a whole page dedicated to a table of the lunar calendar divisions and their Gregorian calendar equivalents, which I don't see as being particularly useful unless you're a farmer. I'm sure the problem I have with the textbooks not seeming thorough enough or giving enough Korean examples are probably solved by the accompanying workbooks, but considering the less than ideal layout of the textbooks (huge text, so much white space and irrelevant info), I feel like the main textbook could easily be improved to incorporate these elements. I do still want to work through the other Integrated Korean books I have, but I think after that I'll try some textbooks from Korean universities.

Mandarin: I was devastated to see that 반달친구 wasn't on this week, so I ended up binging on 《一年級》, which might be my new favourite show. So glad Chinese shows have subs, they really help my comprehension since my reading is always better than my listening. I don't know if subs help or hinder listening skills - you might understand more of the content, but does your brain then disregard information you hear in favour of what you read? Although I don't get to read all the subs anyway unless I pause the video, they talk so fast!

[Cloud]

Mandarin: I really like that clozemaster has split the Chinese sentences into HSK levels. I'm working through them level by level, and I've just finished HSK1. I've also downloaded a complete HSK vocab anki deck to work through as well - I think I had learned the vocab for HSK1-3 and some of HSK4 on memrise before I abandoned it (gradually moving to using anki for everything now). I've always been a bit unhappy with the way I've studied grammar, since I couldn't find a course I really liked. I went through the first four NPCR textbooks (are there more?) last year, and from what I remember I didn't find them very enjoyable or interesting (though I might have a quick look through them again to refresh my memory). So I'm just gonna keep going with anki (vocab + sentences) and clozemaster for now. I'm reading through the Chinese Breeze graded readers, and some articles on Decipher Chinese. And still watching a bit of 《一年級》 every day - I thought I'd burn through the eps really quickly, totally forgetting how long Chinese shows are!

[Cloud]

Esperanto: A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, so I read some Winnie-La-Pu. For some reason, I went straight for an Esperanto book instead of an English book, thinking Esperanto would be easier to read. It didn't occur to me until the next morning that this was kind of a strange idea - I wasn't thinking about the content of the books, I just thought that the language would be easier to process for my sleep-deprived brain. Anyway, I got super excited about Esperanto again and regilded my Duo tree, even though I said I was just going to leave it decaying (not that it took long to review, a couple of days and I was done). And now I really want more~! I recently picked up a copy of Paŝoj al Plena Posedo by William Auld, which a collection of short passages with word definitions and exercises / questions (all in EO!), so that'll keep me busy until Duo's EO 2.0 is released.

[Cloud]

Chinese
I was lamenting recently about not being able to find suitable textbooks, when I found exactly what I was looking for on my own bookshelf. I had totally forgotten that I had bought it, but I have a Basic Chinese Grammar and Workbook, which has just what I was looking for: super concise grammar explanations, with plenty of sample sentences and exercises (with an answer key). Ideal for self-study! Since the chapters seem to be quite short, I'm hoping to complete one a day. Flipping through the book, I already know quite a lot of the content, but I'm eager to go through it systematically so that I can consolidate what I've learned and fill in any gaps. I had been going through the Chinese Grammar Wiki to learn / consolidate my knowledge and add their example sentences to Anki, but I think I'll put that on the back-burner for now, since I prefer learning from textbooks.

Korean
I have the Integrated Korean series up to Advanced Intermediate 1, which I was looking through to see how much I already knew. I was a bit disappointed to see that I knew most of the grammar (and happy, too, I guess - shows I haven't been slacking completely!), but I still want to work through them. As I've said, I've went through Beginning 1+2, and it took me a few hours to skim the important parts, but I'm going to take more time over the other books I have. I studied the first chapter of Intermediate 1 today, which took me about 45 minutes. The sections I'm interested in are the Korean dialogues and texts, grammar notes and examples, and cultural notes. I admit that there's a lot in the huge vocab lists that I don't know, but once I'm past the beginner stage I don't like studying vocab out of context. There are also a lot of exercises to complete, but the answers aren't provided, and most of them are designed for class settings anyway. Anyway, I'd like to try reading through one lesson a day, which should take me a few weeks to get through.

After that, I'll need more textbooks! I was lucky to find all my Integrated Korean textbooks really cheap, but although I've had a look every now and then for the higher level textbooks, I haven't been able to find anything affordable, and I'm reluctant to buy an IK textbook at full price. After reading reviews, I'm interested in perhaps getting the Ewha Level 4 textbook (+wb?), especially since it's all in Korean. Another book that caught my eye is the Routledge Intermediate Korean Reader - from the preview on Amazon, it looks quite like a textbook, with lots of grammar explanations and exercises (which I like), and I really want more stuff to read at my level. So I don't know which book I want next, but I have a while to think about it.

=====

Since I've noticed this pattern that I have of being really into one language for about a month then moving onto another, I've been thinking about trying to maintain what I've learned rather than (what often happens) dropping it altogether for a few months. I'm focusing on these SRS programs first, although there are other things I'd like to work on making a daily habit in the future, such as writing on Lang-8.

Anki (KO, ZH, IT, TH)
I'm one of those people who gets really enthusiastic about study a huge number of cards, then feels overwhelmed by the reviews and ends up leaving them to pile up until I can face tackling the huge backlog. I've known this for a long time, and yet I have yet to change this behaviour. So what I'm doing right now is just reviewing everything, but I've limited my reviews to 50 cards per language (excluding TH, which I've only just started studying using Anki, and I'm only doing 5 new words a day). Once I've caught up on the reviews, I'll start studying a small number of new cards again, and gradually build until I get to a level that I feel like I can maintain. I want to be able to clear the reviews and learn new cards every day consistently, rather than having to change the options depending on my mood. So when I am really enthusiastic about a certain language, instead of spending more time on Anki, I'm going to try and direct my attention to other ways to study.

Duolingo (EO, NO, DE, IT)
I've dabbled in a lot of languages on Duo, but I recently deleted all the ones I'm not serious about (…yet), and am concentrating on these trees, which I'd like to complete. In a similar way to Anki, I want to focus on a kind of slow-and-steady method of reviewing decaying skills (of which there are many) before tackling new lessons. So I'm reviewing at least one skill per language per day.

Clozemaster (ZH)
For the moment the only language I'm doing on here is Chinese. I think it is really useful for languages that have a lot of sentences, available audio, and the option to study by level. Most of the languages I'd like to study on here fall short on at least one category, but I'll probably take up German when I've finished the Duo course, and Italian if and when it's sorted into levels.

[Cloud]

Wow. Nice to see others checking out Clozemaster. Im using it for Japanese and its working great for me. For some reason the creator said you needed to be B1/N2 in JP to be able to use it but it so easy for me, someone who is has about 400 kanji and 200 words learned. Please write more about how you use Clozemaster

I think it could be beneficial for beginners to use, as long as the language they're studying has been split into levels (hopefully all languages will have this feature in the future). The drawback of the lower levels is that the sentences are so short, you have to use multiple choice rather than text input, since there are plenty of sentences such as "I like ___" which could be anything. I don't know what it's like for other languages, but for Chinese I usually find in multiple choice there's only one card I recognise anyway, because the other options aren't just taken from the same level you are working on, but randomly from higher levels. So right now I feel like I'm getting a lot of practice recognising characters, but I'm looking forward to the more challenging levels where there's enough context in the sentence to be able to guess the words and use text input.